The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them, had
admitted the use of images; and perhaps that religion, without some of
those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress with these
idolaters; but they had not paid any species of worship or address
to images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians, till it
received the sanction of the second council of Nice.
EGBERT.
[Sidenote: 827.] The kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though united by a
recent conquest, seemed to be firmly cemented into one state under
Egbert; and the inhabitants of the several provinces had lost all desire
of revolting from that monarch, or of restoring their former independent
governments. Their language was every where nearly the same, their
customs, laws, institutions, civil and religious; and as the race of
the ancient kings was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the
people readily transferred their allegiance to a prince who seemed
to merit it by the splendor of his victories, the vigor of hia
administration, and the superior nobility of his birth. A union also in
government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future tranquillity;
and it appeared more probable that they would thenceforth become
formidable to their neighbors, than be exposed to their inroads and
devastations. But these flattering views were soon overcast by
the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries, kept the
Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most barbarous
ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to grievous servitude.
The emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had been
induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan Saxons in
Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their country with
fire and sword, he had, in cool blood, decimated all the inhabitants
for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most rigorous edicts,
to make a seeming compliance with the Christian doctrine. That religion,
which had easily made its way among the British Saxons by insinuation
and address, appeared shocking to their German brethren, when imposed on
them by the violence of Charlemagne; and the more generous and warlike
of these pagans had fled northward into Jutland, in order to escape
the fury of his persecutions. Meeting there with a people of similar
manners, they were readily received among them; and they soon stimulated
the natives to concur in enterprises which both promised revenge on
the haughty conqueror, and afforded subsistence to those numerous
inhabitants with which the northern countries were now overburdened.[*]
They invaded the provinces of France, which were exposed by the
degeneracy and dissensions of Charlemagne’s posterity; and being there
known under the general name of Normans, which they received from their
northern situation, they became the terror of all the maritime and even
of the inland countries. They were also tempted to visit England in
their frequent excursions; and being able, by sudden inroads, to make
great progress over a people who were not defended by any naval force,
who had relaxed their military institutions, and who were sunk into a
superstition which had become odious to the Danes and ancient Saxons,
they made no distinction in their hostilities between the French and
English kingdoms. Their first appearance in this island was in the year
787,[**] when Brithric reigned in Wessex. A small body of them landed in
that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the country; and when
the magistrate of the place questioned them concerning their enterprise,
and summoned them to appear before the king, and account for their
intentions, they killed him, and, flying to, their ships, escaped into
their own country. The next alarm was given to Northumberland in the
year 794,[***] when a body of these pirates pillaged a monastery; but
their ships being much damaged by a storm, and their leader slain in
a skirmish, they were at last defeated by the inhabitants, and the
remainder of them put to the sword. [Sidenote: 832] Five years after
Egbert had established his monarchy over England, the Danes landed in
the Isle of Shepey, and having pillaged it, escaped with impunity.[****]
They were not so fortunate in their next year’s enterprise, when they
disembarked from thirty-five ships, and were encountered by Egbert, at
Charmouth, in Dorsetshire. The battle was bloody; but though the Danes
lost great numbers, they maintained the post which they had taken, and
thence made good their retreat to their ships.[*****]
[* Ypod. Neust. p. 414.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 64.]
[*** Chron. Sax. p. 66. Alured. Beveri. p. 108.]
[**** Chron. Sax. p. 72]
[***** Chiron. Sax. p. 72. Ethelwerd,lib. iii.
cap. 2.]
Having learned, by experience, that they must expect a vigorous
resistance from this warlike prince, they entered into an alliance with
the Britons of Cornwall; and, landing two years after in that country,
made an inroad with their confederates into the county of Devon, but
were met at Hengesdown by Egbert, and totally defeated.[*] While England
remained in this state of anxiety, and defended itself more by temporary
expedients than by any regular plan of administration, Egbert, who alone
was able to provide effectually against this new evil, unfortunately
died, and left the government to his son Ethelwolf.
[* Chron. Sax. p. 72.]
ETHELWOLF.
This prince had neither the abilities nor the vigor of his father, and
was better qualified for governing a convent than a kingdom.[*] He began
his reign with making a partition of his dominions, and delivering over
to his eldest son, Athelstan, the new-conquered provinces of Essex,
Kent, and Sussex. But no inconveniences seem to have arisen from this
partition as the continual terror of the Danish invasions prevented
all domestic dissension. A fleet of these ravagers, consisting of
thirty-three sail, appeared at Southampton, but were repulsed with loss
by Wolfhere, governor of the neighboring country.[**] The same year,
Æthelhelm, governor of Dorsetshire, routed another band, which had
disembarked at Portsmouth; but he obtained the victory after a furious
engagement, and he bought it with the loss of his life.[***]
[* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap 2.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 73. Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap.
3.]
[*** Chron. Sax. p. 73. H. Hunting, lib. v.]
Next year, the Danes made several inroads into England, and fought
battles, or rather skirmishes, in East Anglia and Lindesey and Kent;
where, though they were sometimes repulsed and defeated, they always
obtained their end, of committing spoil upon the country, and carrying
off their booty. They avoided coming to a general engagement, which was
not suited to their plan of operations. Their vessels were small, and
ran easily up the creeks and rivers, where they drew them ashore, and,
having formed an intrenchment round them, which they guarded with part
of their number, the remainder scattered themselves every where, and
carrying off the inhabitants, and cattle, and goods, they hastened
to their ships, and quickly disappeared. If the military force of the
county were assembled, (for there was no time for troops to march from
a distance,) the Danes either were able to repulse them, and to continue
their ravages with impunity, or they betook themselves to their vessels,
and, setting sail, suddenly invaded some distant quarter, which was not
prepared for their reception.
Every part of England was held in continual alarm; and the inhabitants
of one county durst not give assistance to those of another, lest their
own families and property should in the mean time be exposed by their
absence to the fury of these barbarous ravagers.[*]
[* Alured. Beverl. p. 108.]
All orders of men were involved in this calamity; and the priests and
monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic quarrels of
the Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish idolaters
exercised their rage and animosity. Every season of the year was
dangerous, and the absence of the enemy was no reason why any man could
esteem himself a moment in safety.
These incursions had now become almost annual; when the Danes,
encouraged by their successes against France as well as England, (for
both kingdoms were alike exposed to this dreadful calamity,) invaded
the last in so numerous a body as seemed to threaten it with universal
subjection. But the English, more military than the Britons, whom a few
centuries before they had treated with like violence, roused themselves
with a vigor proportioned to the exigency. Ceorle, governor of
Devonshire, fought a battle with one body of the Danes at Wiganburgh,[*]
and put them to rout with great slaughter.
[* H. Hunting, lib. v. Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap 3.
Sim. Dunelm. p. 120.]
King Athelstan attacked another at sea, near Sandwich, sunk nine of
their ships, and put the rest to flight.[*]
[* Chron. Sax. p. 74. Asser. p. 2.]
A body of them, however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter
quarters in England; and receiving in the spring a strong reënforcement
of their countrymen, in three hundred and fifty vessels, they advanced
from the Isle of Thanet, where they had stationed themselves, burnt the
cities of London and Canterbury, and having put to flight Brichtric, who
now governed Mercia under the title of king, they marched into the heart
of Surrey, and laid every place waste around them. Ethelwolf, impelled
by the urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the
West Saxons; and, carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them
battle at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them. This advantage
procured but a short respite to the English. The Danes still maintained
their settlement in the Isle of Thanet; and, being attacked by Ealher
and Huda, governors of Kent and Surrey, though defeated in the beginning
of the action, they finally repulsed the assailants, and killed both
the governors, removed thence to the Isle of Shepey, where they took up
their winter quarters, that they might farther extend their devastation
and ravages.
This unsettled state of England hindered not Ethelwolf from making a
pilgrimage to Rome, whither he carried his fourth and favorite son,
Alfred, then only six years of age.[*] He passed there a twelvemonth
in exercises of devotion; and failed not in that most essential part of
devotion, liberality to the church of Rome. Besides giving presents to
the more distinguished ecclesiastics, he made a perpetual grant of three
hundred mancuses[**] a year to that see; one third to support the
lamps of St. Peter’s, another those of St. Paul’s, a third to the pope
himself.[***] In his return home, he married Judith, daughter of the
emperor Charles the Bald; but, on his landing in England, he met with an
opposition which he little looked for.
His eldest son, Athelstan, being dead, Ethelbald, his second, who had
assumed the government, formed, in concert with many of the nobles, the
project of excluding his father from a throne which his weakness and
superstition seem to have rendered him so ill qualified to fill. The
people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil war,
joined to all the other calamities under which the English labored,
appeared inevitable, when Ethelwolf had the facility to yield to the
greater part of his son’s pretensions. He made with him a partition of
the kingdom; and, taking to himself the eastern part, which was always,
at that time, esteemed the least considerable, as well as the most
exposed,[****] he delivered over to Ethelbald the sovereignty of the
western. Immediately after, he summoned the states of the whole kingdom,
and with the same facility conferred a perpetual and important donation
on the church.
[* Asser. p. 2. Chron. Sax. 76. H. Hunting, lib.
v.]
[** A mancus was about the weight of our present
half crown. See Spelman’s Glossary, in verbo Mancus.]
[*** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 2.]
[**** Asser. p. 3. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 2. M.
West. p. 7, 8.]
The ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, made rapid advances in
the acquisition of power and grandeur; and, inculcating the most absurd
and most interested doctrines, though they sometimes met, from the
contrary interests of the laity, with an opposition which it required
time and address to overcome, they found no obstacle in their reason or
understanding. Not content with the donations of land made them by the
Saxon princes and nobles, and with temporary oblations from the devotion
of the people, they had cast a wishful eye on a vast revenue, which they
claimed as belonging to them by a sacred and indefeasible title. However
little versed in the Scriptures, they had been able to discover that,
under the Jewish law, a tenth of all the produce of land was conferred
on the priesthood; and, forgetting what they themselves taught, that the
moral part only of that law was obligatory on Christians, they insisted
that this donation conveyed a perpetual property, inherent by divine
right in those who officiated at the altar. During some centuries, the
whole scope of sermons and homilies was directed to this purpose; and
one would have imagined, from the general tenor of these discourses,
that all the practical parts of Christianity were comprised in the exact
and faithful payment of tithes to the clergy.[*] Encouraged by their
success in inculcating these doctrines, they ventured farther than they
were warranted even by the Levitical law, and pretended to draw the
tenth of all industry, merchandise, wages of laborers, and pay of
soldiers;[**] nay, some canonists went so far as to affirm that the
clergy were entitled to the tithe of the profits made by courtesans
in the exercise of their profession.[***] Though parishes had been
instituted in England by Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, near two
centuries before,[****] the ecclesiastics had never yet been able to get
possession of the tithes; they therefore seized the present favorable
opportunity of making that acquisition; when a weak, superstitious
prince filled the throne, and when the people, discouraged by their
losses from the Danes, and terrified with the fear of future invasions,
were susceptible of any impression which bore the appearance of
religion.[*****] So meritorious was this concession deemed by the
English, that, trusting entirely to supernatural assistance, they
neglected the ordinary means of safety; and agreed, even in the present
desperate extremity, that the revenues of the church should be
exempted from all burdens, though imposed for national defence and
security.[******]
[* Padre Paolo, sopra beneficii ecclesiastici, p.
51, 52, edit. Colon. 1675.]
[** Spell. Concil. vol. i. p. 268.]
[*** Padre Paolo, p. 132.]
[**** Parker, p. 77.]
[***** Ingulph. p. 862. Selden’s Hist. of Tithes,
c. 8.]
[****** Asser. p. 2. Chron. Sax. p. 76. W. Malms,
lib. ii. cap. 2. Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap. 3. M. West. p.
158. Ingulph. p. 17. Alured. Beverl. p. 95.]
ETHELBALD AND ETHELBERT.
Ethelwolf lived only two years after making this grant; and by his will
he shared England between his two eldest sons, Ethelbald and Ethelbert;
the west being assigned to the former, the east to the latter. Ethelbald
was a profligate prince; and marrying Judith, his mother-in-law, gave
great offence to the people; but moved by the remonstrances of Swithun,
bishop of Winchester, he was at last prevailed on to divorce her.
His reign was short; and Ethelbert, his brother, succeeding to the
government, behaved himself, during a reign of five years, in a manner
more worthy of his birth and station. The kingdom, however, was still
infested by the Danes, who made an inroad and sacked Winchester, but
were there defeated. A body also of these pirates, who were quartered
in the Isle of Thanet, having deceived the English by a treaty,
unexpectedly broke into Kent, and committed great outrages.
ETHERED
Ethelbert was succeeded by his brother Ethered, who, though he defended
himself with bravery, enjoyed, during his whole reign, no tranquillity
from those Danish irruptions. His younger brother, Alfred, seconded him
in all his enterprises, and generously sacrificed to the public good all
resentment, which he might entertain on account of his being excluded by
Ethered from a large patrimony which had been left him by his father.
The first landing of the Danes, in the reign of Ethered, was among the
East Angles, who, more anxious for their present safety than for the
common interest, entered into a separate treaty with the enemy, and
furnished them with horses, which enabled them to make an irruption by
land into the kingdom of Northumberland. They there seized the city
of York, and defended it against Osbricht and Ælia, two Northumbrian
princes, who perished in the assault.[*] Encouraged by these successes,
and by the superiority which they had acquired in arms, they now
ventured, under the command of Hinguar and Hubba, to leave the
sea-coast, and penetrating into Mercia, they took up their winter
quarters at Nottingham, where they threatened the kingdom with a final
subjection.
[* Asser, p. 6. Chron. Sax. p. 79.]
The Mercians, in this extremity, applied to Ethered for succor; and that
prince, with his brother Alfred, conducting a great army to Nottingham,
obliged the enemy to dislodge, and to retreat into Northumberland.
{870.} Their restless disposition, and their avidity for plunder,
allowed them not to remain long in those quarters; they broke into East
Anglia, defeated and took prisoner Edmund, the king of that country,
whom they afterwards murdered in cool blood; and, committing the most
barbarous ravages on the people, particularly on the monasteries, they
gave the East Angles cause to regret the temporary relief which they had
obtained, by assisting the common enemy.
The next station of the Danes was at Reading; whence they infested
the neighboring country by their incursions. The Mercians, desirous of
shaking off their dependence on Ethered, refused to join him with
their forces; and that prince, attended by Alfred, was obliged to march
against the enemy with the West Saxons alone, his hereditary subjects.
The Danes, being defeated in an action, shut themselves up in their
garrison; but quickly making thence an irruption, they routed the West
Saxons, and obliged them to raise the siege. An action soon after ensued
at Aston, in Berkshire, where the English, in the beginning of the day,
were in danger of a total defeat. Alfred, advancing with one division
of the army, was surrounded by the enemy in disadvantageous ground;
and Ethered, who was at that time hearing mass, refused to march to his
assistance till prayers should be finished;[*] but, as he afterwards
obtained the victory, this success, not the danger of Alfred, was
ascribed by the monks to the piety of that monarch.
[* Asser. p. 7. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 3 Sim.
Dunelm. p. 125. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 205.]
[Illustration: 035.jpg ALFRED BEFORE THE DANISH GENERAL]
ALFRED.
This battle of Aston did not terminate the war; another battle was a
little after fought at Basing, where the Danes were more successful; and
being reënforced by a new army from their own country, they became every
day more terrible to the English. Amidst these confusions, Ethered died
of a wound which he had received in an action with the Danes; and
left the inheritance of his cares and misfortunes, rather than of his
grandeur, to his brother Alfred, who was now twenty-two years of age.
This prince gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining
talents, by which, during the most difficult times, he saved his country
from utter ruin and subversion. Ethelwolf, his father, the year after
his return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young prince
thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of the king’s
death, the Pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction;[*] whether
prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances of his
pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to the right
of conferring kingdoms. Alfred, on his return home, became every day
more the object of his father’s affections; but being indulged in all
youthful pleasures, he was much neglected in his education; and he had
already reached his twelfth year, when he was yet totally ignorant of
the lowest elements of literature. His genius was first roused by
the recital of Saxon poems, in which the queen took delight; and this
species of erudition, which is sometimes able to make a considerable
progress even among barbarians, expanded those noble and elevated
sentiments which he had received from nature.[**] Encouraged by the
queen, and stimulated by his own ardent inclination, he soon learned to
read those compositions; and proceeded thence to acquire the knowledge
of the Latin tongue, in which he met with authors that better prompted
his heroic spirit, and directed his generous views. Absorbed in these
elegant pursuits, he regarded his accession to royalty rather as an
object of regret than of triumph;[***] but being called to the throne,
in preference to his brother’s children, as well by the will of
his father,--a circumstance which had great authority with the
Anglo-Saxons[****]--as by the vows of the whole nation, and the urgency
of public affairs, he shook off his literary indolence, and exerted
himself in the defence of his people. He had scarcely buried his
brother, when he was obliged to take the field, in order to oppose the
Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising their usual ravages on
the countries around.
[* Asser. p. 2. W. Malms, lib. ii. chap. 2.
Ingulph. p. 869. Sim. Dunelm. p. 120, 139.]
[** Asser. p. 5. M. West, p. 167.]
[*** Asser. p. 7.]
[**** Asser. p. 22. Sim. Dunelm. p. 121.]
He marched against them with the few troops which he could assemble on
a sudden, and, giving them battle, gained at first an advantage;
but, by his pursuing the victory too far, the superiority of the enemy’s
numbers prevailed, and recovered them the day. Their loss, however,
in the action, was so considerable, that, fearing Alfred would receive
daily reënforcements from his subjects, they were content to stipulate
for a safe retreat, and promised to depart the kingdom. For that
purpose, they were conducted to London, and allowed to take up winter
quarters there; but, careless of their engagements, they immediately
set themselves to the committing of spoil on the neighboring country.
Burrhed, king of Mercia, in whose territories London was situated, made
a new stipulation with them, and engaged them, by presents of money, to
remove to Lindesey, in Lincolnshire, a country which they had already
reduced to ruin and desolation. Finding, therefore, no object in that
place, either for their rapine or violence, they suddenly turned
back upon Mercia, in a quarter where they expected to find it without
defence; and fixing their station at Repton, in Derbyshire, they laid
the whole country desolate with fire and sword. Burrhed, despairing of
success against an enemy whom no force could resist, and no treaties
bind, abandoned his kingdom, and, flying to Rome, took shelter in a
cloister.[*] He was brother-in-law to Alfred, and the last who bore the
title of king in Mercia.
The West Saxons were now the only remaining power in England; and though
supported by the vigor and abilities of Alfred, they were unable to
sustain the efforts of those ravagers, who from all quarters invaded
them. A new swarm of Danes came over this year under three princes,
Guthrum, Oscitel, and Amund; and having first joined their countrymen at
Repton, they soon found the necessity of separating, in order to provide
for their subsistence. Part of them, under the command of Haldene,
their chieftain,[**] marched into Northumberland, where they fixed
their residence; part of them took quarters at Cambridge, whence they
dislodged in the ensuing summer and seized Wereham, in the county of
Dorset, the very centre of Alfred’s dominions. That prince so straitened
them in these quarters, that they were content to come to a treaty with
him, and stipulated to depart his country. Alfred, well acquainted with
their usual perfidy, obliged them to swear upon the holy relics to the
observance of the treaty;[***] not that he expected they would pay any
veneration to the relics; but he hoped that, if they now violated this
oath, their impiety would infallibly draw down upon them the vengeance
of Heaven.
[* Asser. p. 8. Chron. Sax. p. 82. Ethelwerd, lib.
iv. cap. 4.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 83.]
[*** Asser. p 8.]
But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger suddenly, without
seeking any pretence, fell upon Alfred’s army; and having put it to
rout, marched westward, and took possession of Exeter. The prince
collected new forces, and exerted such vigor, that he fought in one
year eight battles with the enemy,[*] and reduced them to the utmost
extremity. He hearkened, however, to new proposals of peace, and was
satisfied to stipulate with them, that they would settle somewhere in
England,[**] and would not permit the entrance of more ravagers into the
kingdom. But while he was expecting the execution of this treaty, which
it seemed the interest of the Danes themselves to fulfil, he heard that
another body had landed, and, having collected all the scattered troops
of their country men, had surprised Chippenham, then a considerable
town, and were exercising their usual ravages all around them.
This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced
them to despair. Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which they
had undergone in their persons and in their property, after all the
vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence, a new
band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among
them, they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and
delivered over to those swarms of robbers which the fertile north thus
incessantly poured forth against them. Some left their country and
retired into Wales, or fled beyond sea; others submitted to
the conquerors, in hopes of appeasing their fury by a servile
obedience.[***] And every man’s attention being now engrossed in concern
for his own preservation, no one would hearken to the exhortations of
the king, who summoned them to make, under his conduct, one effort more
in defence of their prince, their country, and their liberties. Alfred
himself was obliged to relinquish the ensigns of his dignity, to dismiss
his servants, and to seek shelter in the meanest disguises from the
pursuit and fury of his enemies. He concealed himself under a peasant’s
habit, and lived some time in the house of a neat-herd, who had been
intrusted with the care of some of his cows.[****]
[* Asser. p. 8. The Saxon Chronicle, p. 82, says
nine battles.]
[** Asser. p. 9. Alured. Beverl. p. 104.]
[*** Chron. Sax. p. 84. Alured. Beverl. p. 105.]
[**** Asser. p. 9.]
There passed here an incident, which has been recorded by all the
historians, and was long preserved by popular tradition, though
it contains nothing memorable in itself, except so far as every
circumstance is interesting which attends so much virtue and dignity
reduced to such distress. The wife of the neat-herd was ignorant of the
condition of her royal guest; and observing him one day busy, by the
fireside, in trimming his bow and arrows, she desired him to take care
of some cakes which were toasting, while she was employed elsewhere
in other domestic affairs. But Alfred, whose thoughts were otherwise
engaged, neglected this injunction; and the good woman, on her return,
finding her cakes all burnt, rated the king very severely, and upbraided
him, that he always seemed very well pleased to eat her warm cakes
though he was thus negligent in toasting them.[*]
By degrees, Alfred, as he found the search of the enemy become more
remiss, collected some of his retainers, and retired into the centre
of a bog, formed by the stagnating waters of the Thone and Parret, in
Somersetshire. He here found two acres of firm ground; and building a
habitation on them, rendered himself secure by its fortifications, and
still more by the unknown and inaccessible roads which led to it, and
by the forests and morasses with which it was every way environed. This
place he called Æthelingay, or the Isle of Nobles;[**] and it now bears
the name of Athelney. He thence made frequent and unexpected sallies
upon the Danes, who often felt the vigor of his arm, but knew not from
what quarter the blow came. He subsisted himself and his followers by
the plunder which he acquired; he procured them consolation by
revenge; and from small successes, he opened their minds to hope that,
notwithstanding his present low condition, more important victories
might at length attend his valor.
[* Asser. p. 9. M. West. p. 170.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 85. W Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4. Ethelwerd,
lib iv. cap. 4. Ingulph. p. 26.]
Alfred lay here concealed, but not inactive, during a twelvemonth; when
the news of a prosperous event reached his ears, and called him to the
field. Hubba the Dane, having spread devastation, fire, and slaughter
over Wales, had landed in Devonshire from twenty-three vessels, and laid
siege to the castle of Kinwith, a place situated near the mouth of the
small river Tau. Oddune, earl of Devonshire, with his followers, had
taken shelter there; and being ill supplied with provisions, and
even with water, he determined, by some vigorous blow, to prevent the
necessity of submitting to the barbarous enemy. He made a sudden sally
on the Danes before sun-rising; and taking them unprepared, he put them
to rout, pursued them with great slaughter, killed Hubba himself, and
got possession of the famous Reafen, or enchanted standard, in which the
Danes put great confidence.[*] It contained the figure of a raven, which
had been inwoven by the three sisters of Hinguar and Hubba, with
many magical incantations, and which, by its different movements,
prognosticated, as the Danes believed, the good or bad success of any
enterprise.[**]
When Alfred observed this symptom of successful resistance in his
subjects, he left his retreat; but before he would assemble them in
arms, or urge them to any attempt, which, if unfortunate, might, in
their present despondency, prove fatal, he resolved to inspect himself
the situation of the enemy, and to judge of the probability of success.
For this purpose he entered their camp under the disguise of a harper,
and passed unsuspected through every quarter. He so entertained
them with his music and facetious humors, that he met with a welcome
reception, and was even introduced to the tent of Guthrum, their prince,
where he remained some days.[***] He remarked the supine security of the
Danes, their contempt of the English, their negligence in foraging and
plundering, and their dissolute wasting of what they gained by rapine
and violence. Encouraged by these favorable appearances, he secretly
sent emissaries to the most considerable of his subjects, and summoned
them to a rendezvous, attended by their warlike followers, at Brixton,
on the borders of Selwood Forest.[****] The English, who had hoped to
put an end to their calamities by servile submission, now found the
insolence and rapine of the conqueror more intolerable than all past
fatigues and dangers; and at the appointed day, they joyfully resorted
to their prince. On his appearance, they received him with shouts of
applause,[*****] and could not satiate their eyes with the sight of this
beloved monarch, whom they had long regarded as dead, and who now, with
voice and looks expressing his confidence of success, called them to
liberty and to vengeance.
[* Asser. p. 10. Chron. Sax. p. 84. Abbas Rieval. p. 395.
Alured. Beverl. p. 105.]
[** Asser. p. 10.]
[*** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4.]
[**** Chron Sax. p. 85.]
[***** Asser. p. 10. Chron. Sax. p. 85. Sim. Dunelm. p. 128.
Alured. Beverl. p. 105. Abbas Rieval. p. 354.]
He instantly conducted them to Eddington, where the Danes were encamped;
and taking advantage of his previous knowledge of the place, he directed
his attack against the most unguarded quarter of the enemy. The Danes,
surprised to see an army of English, whom they considered as totally
subdued, and still more astonished to hear that Alfred was at their
head, made but a faint resistance, notwithstanding their superiority of
number, and were soon put to flight with great slaughter. The remainder
of the routed army, with their prince, was besieged by Alfred in a
fortified camp to which they fled; but being reduced to extremity by
want and hunger, they had recourse to the clemency of the victor, and
offered to submit on any conditions. The king, no less generous than
brave, gave them their lives, and even formed a scheme for converting
them from mortal enemies into faithful subjects and confederates. He
knew that the kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumberland were totally
desolated by the frequent inroads of the Danes, and he now proposed to
repeople them, by settling there Guthrum and his followers. He hoped
that the new planters would at last betake themselves to industry, when,
by reason of his resistance, and the exhausted condition of the country,
they could no longer subsist by plunder; and that they might serve him
as a rampart against any future incursions of their countrymen. But
before he ratified these mild conditions with the Danes, he required
that they should give him one pledge of their submission, and of
their inclination to incorporate with the English, by declaring their
conversion to Christianity.[*] Guthrum and his army had no aversion to
the proposal; and, without much instruction, or argument, or conference,
they were all admitted to baptism. The king answered for Guthrum at the
font, gave him the name of Athelstan, and received him as his adopted
son.[**]
[* Chron. Sax. p. 85.]
[** Asser. p. 10. Chron. Sax. p. 90.]
The success of this expedient seemed to correspond to Alfred’s hopes:
the greater part of the Danes settled peaceably in their new quarters:
some smaller bodies of the same nation, which were dispersed in Mercia,
were distributed into the five cities of Derby, Leicester, Stamford,
Lincoln, and Nottingham, and were thence called the Fif or Five-burgers.
The more turbulent and unquiet made an expedition into France, under the
command of Hastings;[*] and except by a short incursion of Danes, who
sailed up the Thames, and landed at Fulham, but suddenly retreated to
their ships, on finding the country in a posture of defence, Alfred was
not for some years infested by the inroads of those barbarians.[**]
[* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4. Ingulph. p. 26.]
[** Asser. p. 11.]
The king employed this interval of tranquillity in restoring order to
the state, which had been shaken by so many violent convulsions; in
establishing civil and military institutions; in composing the minds of
men to industry and justice; and in providing against the return of like
calamities. He was, more properly than his grandfather Egbert, the sole
monarch of the English, (for so the Saxons were now universally called,)
because the kingdom of Mercia was at last incorporated in his state,
and was governed by Ethelbert, his brother-in-law, who bore the title of
earl; and though the Danes, who peopled East Anglia and Northumberland,
were for some time ruled immediately by their own princes, they all
acknowledged a subordination to Alfred, and submitted to his superior
authority. As equality among subjects is the great source of concord,
Alfred gave the same laws to the Danes and English, and put them
entirely on a like footing in the administration both of civil and
criminal justice. The fine for the murder of a Dane was the same with
that for the murder of an Englishman; the great symbol of equality in
those ages.
The king, after rebuilding the ruined cities, particularly London,[*]
which had been destroyed by the Danes in the reign of Ethelwolf,
established a regular militia for the defence of the kingdom. He
ordained that all his people should be armed and registered; he assigned
them a regular rotation of duty; he distributed part into the castles
and fortresses, which he built at proper places;[**] he required another
part to take the field on any alarm, and to assemble at stated places of
rendezvous; and he left a sufficient number at home, who were employed
in the cultivation of the land, and who afterwards took their turn in
military service.[***]
[* Asser. p. 15. Chron. Sax. p. 88. M. West. p. 171. Sim.
Dunelm. p. 131. Brompton, p. 812. Alured. Beverl. ex edit.
Hearns, p. 106.]
[** Asser. p 18. Ingulph. p. 27.]
[*** Chron. Sax. p. 92, 93.]
The whole kingdom was like one great garrison; and the Danes could no
sooner appear in one place, than a sufficient number was assembled
to oppose them, without leaving the other quarters defenceless or
disarmed.[*]
[* Spelman’s Life of Alfred, p. 147, edit. 1709.]
But Alfred, sensible that the proper method of opposing an enemy who
made incursions by sea, was to meet them on their own element, took care
to provide himself with a naval force,[*] which, though the most
natural defence of an island, had hitherto been totally neglected by
the English. He increased the shipping of his kingdom both in number and
strength, and trained his subjects in the practice as well of sailing
as of naval action. He distributed his armed vessels in proper stations
around the island, and was sure to meet the Danish ships, either before
or after they had landed their troops, and to pursue them in all their
incursions. Though the Danes might suddenly, by surprise, disembark
on the coast, which was generally become desolate by their frequent
ravages, they were encountered by the English fleet in their retreat;
and escaped not, as formerly, by abandoning their booty, but paid, by
their total destruction, the penalty of the disorders which they had
committed.
[* Asser. p. 9. M. West. p. 179.]
In this manner Alfred repelled several inroads of these piratical
Danes, and maintained his kingdom, during some years, in safety and
tranquillity. A fleet of a hundred and twenty ships of war was stationed
upon the coast; and being provided with warlike engines, as well as
with expert seamen, both Frisians and English, (for Alfred supplied the
defects of his own subjects by engaging able foreigners in his service,)
maintained a superiority over those smaller bands, with which England
had so often been infested.[*]
[* Asser. p. 11. Chiron Sax p. 86, 87. M. West. p. 176.]
But at last Hastings, the famous Danish chief, having ravaged all the
provinces of France, both along the sea-coast and the Loire and Seine,
and being obliged to quit that country, more by the desolation which
he himself had occasioned, than by the resistance of the inhabitants,
appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of three hundred and thirty
sail. The greater part of the enemy disembarked in the Rother and seized
the fort of Apuldore. Hastings himself, commanding a fleet of eighty
sail, entered the Thames, and fortifying Milton, in Kent, began to
spread his forces over the country, and to commit the most destructive
ravages. But Alfred, on the first alarm of this descent, flew to the
defence of his people, at the head of a select band of soldiers, whom he
always kept about his person,[*] and, gathering to him the armed militia
from all quarters, appeared in the field with a force superior to the
enemy. All straggling parties, whom necessity, or love of plunder, had
drawn to a distance from their chief encampment, were cut off by the
English;[**] and these pirates, instead of increasing their spoil, found
themselves cooped up in their fortifications, and obliged to subsist by
the plunder which they had brought from France. Tired of this situation,
which must in the end prove ruinous to them, the Danes at Apuldore rose
suddenly from their encampment, with an intention of marching towards
the Thames, and passing over into Essex: but they escaped not the
vigilance of Alfred, who encountered them at Farnham, put them to
rout,[***] seized all their horses and baggage, and chased the runaways
on board their ships, which carried them up the Colne to Mersey, in
Essex, where they intrenched themselves. Hastings, at the same time, and
probably by concert, made a like movement; and deserting Milton,
took possession of Bamflete, near the Isle of Canvey, in the same
county,[****] where he hastily threw up fortifications for his defence
against the power of Alfred.
[* Asser. p. 19.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 92.]
[*** Chron. Sax. p. 93. Flor. Wigorn. p. 595.]
[**** Chron. Sax. p. 93.]
Unfortunately for the English, Guthrum, prince of the East Anglian
Danes, was now dead; as was also Guthred, whom the king had appointed
governor of the Northumbrians; and those restless tribes, being
no longer restrained by the authority of their princes, and being
encouraged by the appearance of so great a body of their countrymen,
broke into rebellion, shook off the authority of Alfred, and yielding to
their inveterate habits of war and depredation,[*] embarked on board two
hundred and forty vessels, and appeared before Exeter, in the west of
England. Alfred lost not a moment in opposing this new enemy. Having
left some forces at London to make head against Hastings and the other
Danes, he marched suddenly to the west,[**] and, falling on the
rebels before they were aware, pursued them to their ships with great
slaughter.
[* Chron. Sax. p. 92.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 93.]
These ravagers, sailing next to Sussex, began to plunder the country
near Chichester; but the order which Alfred had everywhere established,
sufficed here, without his presence, for the defence of the place,
and the rebels, meeting with a new repulse, in which many of them were
killed, and some of their ships taken,[*] were obliged to put again to
sea, and were discouraged from attempting any other enterprise.
[* Chron. Sax p. 96. Flor. Wigorn. p. 596.]
Meanwhile the Danish invaders in Essex, having united their force under
the command of Hastings, advanced into the inland country, and made
spoil of all around them; but soon had reason to repent of their
temerity. The English army left in London, assisted by a body of the
citizens, attacked the enemy’s intrenchments at Bamflete, overpowered
the garrison, and having done great execution upon them, carried off
the wife and two sons of Hastings.[*] Alfred generously spared these
captives, and even restored them to Hastings,[**] on condition that he
should depart the kingdom.
[* Chron. Sax. p. 94. M. West. w 178.]
[** M. West, p. 179.]
But though the king had thus honorably rid himself of this dangerous
enemy, he had not entirely subdued or expelled the invaders. The
piratical Danes willingly followed in an excursion any prosperous
leader who gave them hopes of booty, but were not so easily induced to
relinquish their enterprise, or submit to return, baffled and without
plunder, into their native country. Great numbers of them, after the
departure of Hastings, seized and fortified Shobury, at the mouth of the
Thames; and having left a garrison there, they marched along the river,
till they came to Boddington, in the county of Glocester; where, being
reënforced by some Welsh, they threw up intrenchments, and prepared for
their defence. The king here surrounded them with the whole force of
his dominions; [*] and as he had now a certain prospect of victory, he
resolved to trust nothing to chance, but rather to master his enemies by
famine than assault. They were reduced to such extremities, that
having eaten their own horses, and having many of them perished with
hunger,[**] they made a desperate sally upon the English; and though
the greater number fell in the action, a considerable body made their
escape.[***]
[* Chron. Sax. p. 94.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 94. M. West. p. 179. Flor.
Wigorn. p. 596.]
[*** Chron. Sax p. 96.]
These roved about for some time in England, still pursued by the
vigilance of Alfred; they attacked Leicester with success, defended
themselves in Hartford, and then fled to Quatford, where they were
finally broken and subdued. The small remains of them either dispersed
themselves among their countrymen in Northumberland and East Anglia,[*]
or had recourse again to the sea, where they exercised piracy, under the
command of Sigefert, a Northumbrian.
[* Chron. Sax. p. 97.]
This freebooter, well acquainted with Alfred’s naval preparations, had
framed vessels of a new construction, higher, and longer, and swifter
than those of the English; but the king soon discovered his superior
skill, by building vessels still higher, and longer, and swifter than
those of the Northumbrians; and falling upon them, while they were
exercising their ravages in the west, he took twenty of their ships; and
having tried all the prisoners at Winchester, he hanged them as pirates,
the common enemies of mankind.
The well-timed severity of this execution, together with the excellent
posture of defence established every where, restored full tranquillity
in England, and provided for the future security of the government. The
East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, on the first appearance of Alfred
upon their frontiers, made anew the most humble submissions to him;
and he thought it prudent to take them under his immediate government,
without establishing over them a viceroy of their own nation.[*] The
Welsh also acknowledged his authority; and this great prince had now, by
prudence, and justice, and valor, established his sovereignty over
all the southern parts of the island, from the English Channel to the
frontiers of Scotland; when he died, {901.} in the vigor of his age
and the full strength of his faculties, after a glorious reign of
twenty-nine years and a half,[**] in which he deservedly attained the
appellation of Alfred the Great, and the title of founder of the English
monarchy.
[* Flor. Wigorn. p. 598.]
[** Asser. p. 21. Chron. Sax. p. 95.]
The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with
advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch, or citizen,
which the annals of any age, or any nation, can present to us. He seems,
indeed, to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the
denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of
delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes of
ever seeing it really existing; so happily were all his virtues tempered
together, so justly were they blended, and so powerfully did each
prevent the other from exceeding its proper boundaries. He knew how to
reconcile the most enterprising spirit with the coolest moderation;
the most obstinate perseverance with the easiest flexibility: the
most severe justice with the gentlest lenity; the greatest vigor in
commanding with the most perfect affability of deportment;[*] the
highest capacity and inclination for science with the most shining
talents for action.
[* Asser. p. 13.]
His civil and his military virtues are almost equally the objects of
our admiration; excepting only that the former, being more rare among
princes, as well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause.
Nature, also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill
should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily
accomplishment--vigor of limbs, dignity of shape and air, with a
pleasing, engaging, and open countenance. Fortune alone, by throwing him
into that barbarous age, deprived him of historians worthy to transmit
his fame to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively
colors, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least perceive
some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a man, it is
impossible he could be entirely exempted.
But we should give but an imperfect idea of Alfred’s merit, were we
to confine our narration to his military exploits, and were not more
particular in our account of his institutions for the execution of
justice, and of his zeal for the encouragement of arts and sciences.
After Alfred had subdued, and had settled or expelled the Danes, he
found the kingdom in the most wretched condition; desolated by the
ravages of those barbarians, and thrown into disorders which were
calculated to perpetuate its misery. Though the great armies of the
Danes were broken, the country was full of straggling troops of that
nation, who, being accustomed to live by plunder, were become incapable
of industry; and who, from the natural ferocity of their manners,
indulged themselves in committing violence, even beyond what was
requisite to supply their necessities. The English themselves, reduced
to the most extreme indigence by those continued depredations, had
shaken off all bands of government; and those who had been plundered
to-day, betook themselves next day to a like disorderly life, and,
from despair, joined the robbers in pillaging and ruining their
fellow-citizens. These were the evils for which it was necessary that
the vigilance and activity of Alfred should provide a remedy.
That he might render the execution of justice strict and regular, he
divided all England into counties: these counties he subdivided
into hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings. Every householder was
answerable for the behavior of his family and slaves, and even of his
guests, if they lived above three days in his house. Ten neighboring
householders were formed into one corporation, who, under the name of
a tithing, decennary, or fribourg, were answerable for each other’s
conduct, and over whom, one person, called a tithing-man, headbourg,
or borsholder, was appointed to preside. Every man was punished as an
outlaw who did not register himself in some tithing. And no man
could change his habitation without a warrant or certificate from the
borsholder of the tithing to which he formerly belonged.
When any person, in any tithing or decennary, was guilty of a crime, the
borsholder was summoned to answer for him; and if he were not willing to
be surety for his appearance, and his clearing himself, the criminal
was committed to prison, and there detained till his trial. If he fled,
either before or after finding sureties, the borsholder and decennary
became liable to inquiry, and were exposed to the penalties of law.
Thirty-one days were allowed them for producing the criminal; and if
that time elapsed without their being able to find him, the borsholder,
with two other members of the decennary, was obliged to appear, and,
together with three chief members of the three neighboring decennaries,
(making twelve in all,) to swear that his decennary was free from all
privity, both of the crime committed, and of the escape of the criminal.
If the borsholder could not find such a number to answer for their
innocence, the decennary was compelled by fine to make satisfaction to
the king, according to the degree of the offence.[*]
[* Leges St. Edw. cap. 20, apud Wilkins, p. 202.]
By this institution, every man was obliged, from his own interest, to
keep a watchful eye over the conduct of his neighbors; and was in
a manner surety for the behavior of those who were placed under the
division to which he belonged; whence these decennaries received the
name of frank-pledges.
Such a regular distribution of the people, with such a strict
confinement in their habitation, may not be necessary in times when
men are more inured to obedience and justice; and it might, perhaps, be
regarded as destructive of liberty and commerce in a polished state; but
it was well calculated to reduce that fierce and licentious people under
the salutary restraint of law and government. But Alfred took care to
temper these rigors by other institutions favorable to the freedom of
the citizens; and nothing could be more popular and liberal than his
plan for the administration of justice. The borsholder summoned together
his whole decennary to assist him in deciding any lesser differences
which occurred among the members of this small community. In affairs
of greater moment, in appeals from the decennary, or in controversies
arising between members of different decennaries, the cause was brought
before the hundred, which consisted of ten decennaries, or a hundred
families of freemen, and which was regularly assembled once in four
weeks, for the deciding of causes.[*] Their method of decision deserves
to be noted, as being the origin of juries; an institution admirable in
itself, and the best calculated for the preservation of liberty and
the administration of justice that ever was devised by the wit of man.
Twelve freeholders were chosen, who, having sworn, together with the
hundreder, or presiding magistrate of that division, to administer
impartial justice,[**] proceeded to the examination of that cause which
was submitted to their jurisdiction. And beside these monthly meetings
of the hundred, there was an annual meeting, appointed for a more
general inspection of the police of the district; for the inquiry into
crimes, the correction of abuses in magistrates, and the obliging of
every person to show the decennary in which he was registered. The
people, in imitation of their ancestors, the ancient Germans, assembled
there in arms; whence a hundred was sometimes called a wapentake, and
its courts served both for the support of military discipline and for
the administration of civil justice.[***]
[* Leges St. Edw. cap. 2.]
[** Foedus Alfred. et Gothurn. apud Wilkins, cap. 3, p. 47.
Leg. Ethelstani cap. 2, apud Wilkins, p. 58. LL. Ethelr.
sect. 4. Wilkins, p. 117.]
[*** Spelman, in voce Wapentake.]
The next superior court to that of the hundred was the county court,
which met twice a year, after Michaelmas and Easter, and consisted
of the freeholders of the county, who possessed an equal vote in the
decision of causes. The bishop presided in this court, together with
the alderman; and the proper object of the court was, the receiving
of appeals from the hundreds and decennaries, and the deciding of such
controversies as arose between men of different hundreds. Formerly, the
alderman possessed both the civil and military authority; but Alfred,
sensible that this conjunction of powers rendered the nobility dangerous
and independent, appointed also a sheriff in each county, who enjoyed
a coördinate authority with the former in the judicial function.[*]
His office also impowered him to guard the rights of the crown in the
county, and to levy the fines imposed, which in that age formed no
contemptible part of the public revenue.
[* Ingulph. p. 870.]
There lay an appeal, in default of justice, from all these courts, to
the king himself in council; and as the people, sensible of the equity
and great talents of Alfred, placed their chief confidence in him, he
was soon overwhelmed with appeals from all parts of England. He was
indefatigable in the despatch of these causes;[*] but finding that his
time must be entirely engrossed by this branch of duty, he resolved to
obviate the inconvenience, by correcting the ignorance or corruption of
the inferior magistrates, from which it arose.[**] He took care to have
his nobility instructed in letters and the laws; [***] he chose the
earls and sheriffs from among the men most celebrated for probity and
knowledge; he punished severely all malversation in office;[****] and
he removed all the earls whom he found unequal to the trust;[*****]
allowing only some of the more elderly to serve by a deputy, till their
death should make room for more worthy successors.
[* Asser. p. 20.]
[** Asser. p. 18, 21. Flor. Wigorn. p. 594. Abbas
Rieval. p. 355.]
[*** Flor. Wigorn. p. 594. Brompton, p. 814.]
[**** Le Miroir de Justice, chap. 2.]
[***** Asser, p. 20.]
The better to guide the magistrates in the administration of justice,
Alfred framed a body of laws, which, though now lost, served long as the
basis of English jurisprudence, and is generally deemed the origin of
what is denominated the COMMON LAW. He appointed regular meetings of the
states of England twice a year, in London,[*] a city which he himself
had repaired and beautified, and which he thus rendered the capital of
the kingdom.
[* Le Miroir de Justice.]
The similarity of these institutions to the customs of the ancient
Germans, to the practice of the other northern conquerors, and to the
Saxon laws during the Heptarchy, prevents us from regarding Alfred
as the sole author of this plan of government, and leads us rather
to think, that, like a wise-man, he contented himself with reforming,
extending, and executing the institutions which he found previously
established. But, on the whole, such success attended his legislation,
that everything bore suddenly a new face in England. Robberies and
iniquities of all kinds were repressed by the punishment or reformation
of the criminals;[*] and so exact was the general police, that Alfred,
it is said, hung up, by way of bravado, golden bracelets near the
highways, and no man dared to touch them.[**] Yet, amidst these rigors
of justice, this great prince preserved the most sacred regard to the
liberty of his people; and it is a memorable sentiment preserved in
his will, that it was just the English should forever remain as free as
their own thoughts.[***]
[* Ingulph. p. 27.]
[* W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4.]
[* Asset, p. 24.]
As good morals and knowledge are almost inseparable, in every age,
though not in every individual, the care of Alfred for the encouragement
of learning among his subjects was another useful branch of his
legislation, and tended to reclaim the English from their former
dissolute and ferocious manners; but the king was guided, in this
pursuit, less by political views than by his natural bent and propensity
towards letters. When he came to the throne, he found the nation sunk
into the grossest ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from the continued
disorders in the government, and from the ravages of the Danes. The
monasteries were destroyed, the monks butchered or dispersed, their
libraries burnt; and thus the only seats of erudition in those ages were
totally subverted. Alfred himself complains, that on his accession he
knew not one person, south of the Thames, who could so much as interpret
the Latin service, and very few in the northern parts who had reached
even that pitch of erudition. But this prince invited over the most
celebrated scholars from all parts of Europe; he established schools
every where for the instruction of his people; he founded, at least
repaired, the University of Oxford, and endowed it with many privileges
revenues, and immunities; he enjoined by law all freeholders possessed
of two hides[*] of land, or more, to send their children to school, for
their instruction; he gave preferment both in church and state to
such only as had made some proficiency in knowledge; and by all these
expedients he had the satisfaction, before his death, to see a great
change in the face of affairs; and in a work of his, which is still
extant, he congratulates himself on the progress which learning, under
his patronage, had already made in England.
[* A hide contained land sufficient to employ one plough. See
H. Hunting, lib. vi. in A. D. 1008. Annal. Waverl. in A. D.
1083. Gervase of Tilbury says, it commonly contained about
one hundred acres.]